When He Returns

by Kimberly Rae Jordan

  Jesse had been starving by the time he’d arrived since whatever he’d been served on the plane hadn’t been very substantial. Dalton had planned to just order in once they were back at the apartment, but Jesse had wanted to go to a restaurant. Dalton had reserved a car for the evening, so they were able to make their way to a nearby restaurant to grab a bite. He’d tried to get the driver to come in for a meal of his own, but he’d politely refused.

  They had lots of serious stuff to talk about, but for the duration of the meal, they’d focused on catching up on less heavy things. Dalton found himself relaxing, not even having realized how anxious he’d been over seeing Jesse again until the moment he felt the tension unravel in his shoulders.

  As they walked through the front door of the apartment building, Jesse said, “Hmm. That smells…good?”

  Dalton paused on the steps and inhaled. The scent of burnt something lingered in the air, but behind that, there was also the aroma of something good.

  “Smells a bit like cookies?” Jesse said then thumped Dalton on the back. “Did you try making me cookies, man? You shouldn’t have.”

  “Ha. If I made you cookies, they wouldn’t be burnt.” He wondered if Danica had done some baking, but if she had, it was unlikely that she would have burnt anything…unless JD had distracted her.

  The burnt scent grew stronger as they arrived on the second floor, and Dalton glanced at Sierra’s door. It was possible she had attempted to make cookies. He knew she liked cooking and baking, but that she struggled with her attempts failing sometimes.

  Dalton felt drawn to her place, needing to see her, but he resisted and led the way to his own door instead. Once inside, he showed Jesse to his room, grateful that he, Gabe, and Bennett had managed to get all the furniture put together the evening before. Thankfully, he’d had an extra set of bedding that he’d ordered but never used, preferring the set he had on his bed.

  “So do you got any sexy neighbors in this building?” Jesse asked after he came out of his room a few minutes later, having changed into a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt.

  Dalton’s thoughts immediately went to Sierra since she was the only one in the building he’d say was sexy considering he was a straight man and Danica was his sister. And even though he was attracted to Sierra on a physical level as much as he was on an emotional one, she wasn’t the sort of woman Jesse typically went for—not that he would have said anything even if she had been.

  Suddenly he wasn’t all that keen to introduce her to Jesse. The last thing he wanted was to see his best friend hitting on her, just because he could be a flirt sometimes.

  “Haven’t I mentioned that this is a family apartment building? Like as in my family owns the building and all the neighbors are connected to me in one way or another.”

  “So in other words, no?” At Dalton’s nod, he said, “But I’m not related to any of them.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a womanizer I’d never let anywhere near my family members.”

  Jesse grinned. “Okay. Hands off Dalton’s family members.”

  “And don’t you forget it.”

  Jesse lifted a file folder he held in his hand. “Want to go over this tonight and get it out of the way?”

  Dalton didn’t, really, but maybe getting it out of the way was a good thing. “Sure. Let’s sit at the table.”

  He grabbed them each a drink then settled down with Jesse as he pulled the papers out of the folder. Over the next hour, Dalton ceased to be Dalton Callaghan and was once again Dalton, lead singer of Dalton’s Cross. It was a painful switch, particularly since it dealt with the official dissolution of the band.

  He’d known it was coming, and on some level, he welcomed the end of it, but no longer being part of the band left him without a career. Panic shot through him, and he gripped the pen he was holding so tightly he was surprised it didn’t snap.

  “You okay with all this, bud?” Jesse asked.

  Dalton sighed. “I know it’s the right thing to do, but at the same time, the band is all I’ve known for the past ten plus years.”

  “You’re going to be fine. All of us are.”

  “Well, you are, for sure.” Dalton tried to keep the bitterness out of his tone, but from the look on Jesse’s face, he hadn’t succeeded entirely. “And I don’t blame you for that. I just wish I had some clear direction for myself.”

  “Have you written anything recently?”

  Dalton thought about the song he’d been working on about Sierra, but he wasn’t ready to share that with Jesse—or anyone else—just yet. “The music has been silent, for the most part. I’ve had the odd lyric or melody come to me, but the songs aren’t flowing out as easily as they did in the past.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Jesse said, his voice holding more confidence than Dalton felt. “Once it does start flowing again, you’ll have people lining up to sing your songs. I know that touring and performing wasn’t your favorite part of being in the group. You liked the writing and recording part of the process more than anything else.”

  Jesse wasn’t wrong, but it had been impossible to be part of a band and not tour, so he’d put up with it the best he could. Which hadn’t been all that good considering it had left him with a drug habit that still ate at him even after going through rehab and being clean for almost six months.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Dalton muttered as he pulled the papers toward him.

  Part of the emotions that were coming to the surface with all of this had to do with the way the band had ended. Not on a high note, but on a tragic and very sad one.

  “If you’re in the market for a new management team, let me know. I’m working with a group now that are doing a great job. Super professional and eager to work with me. I know they’d be happy to work with you too.”

  “Even if I want to just write music and not tour like you?”

  “Even if,” Jesse said with a nod.

  “I’ll think about it.” Dalton wasn’t about to make any promises or plans until he knew if his music was really coming back to him. Right now, it was just one song, spurred on by his feelings for Sierra, and for all he knew, that might be the only song he was able to write.

  Once they’d finished going over the papers, Jesse put them away and then they settled on the couch to talk. It was the first time they’d been together outside the rehab center since the day Jesse had sent him off with JD. He felt more freedom to talk than he had previously, and for the first time, they talked at length about Angel.

  It was late when they finally called it a night. As Dalton got ready for bed, his thoughts went to Sierra, and he wondered how her visit with Ethan had gone. He wanted to text her and ask, but it was too late for that. Hopefully he’d see her the next day because even though he’d seen her that morning, he hadn’t been able to enjoy his time with her because he’d been in a rush to get the groceries and get back home.

  The next morning, Dalton sent a text to Sierra, asking if she’d be available for the dinner the next night.

  Sierra: I’m so sorry, but my supervisor needed some help on the night shift, so I’m working the next couple nights. 6 pm – 6 am

  Dalton frowned as he read the message. Well, that meant he’d have one less person at the dinner, but he wasn’t happy about it. He’d really wanted her to be there since she had such a calming influence on him, and no matter what Sierra had said to him, he was still anxious about Jesse meeting his parents. He needed her there, but apparently, that wasn’t going to be a possibility.

  Sorry to hear that. He tried to formulate what else to say, finally settling on You’ll be missed!

  Of course, the reality was that the person missing her the most would be him.

  “What’s the problem, bro?” Jesse asked as he walked into the kitchen.

  Dalton looked up as he slid his phone into his pocket. “Just trying to firm up plans for a dinner with the folks and a couple of other people while you’re here.”

  Jesse
paused in mid-step. “You want me to meet your parents?”

  Dalton shrugged. “It’s not so much that I want you to meet them but that they want to meet you.”

  “Uh…why?” Jesse pushed up to sit on the counter, his hands gripping the edge as his feet swung.

  “Because they think you saved my life,” he said. “And, of course, they’re right.”

  “I know you mentioned me watching my language around your family, but I was thinking that with my trip being so quick, there wouldn’t be time to meet them.”

  “Sorry, dude. If my folks found out you were in town, and I didn’t introduce you, they’d be very disappointed in me.” He pulled open the fridge and grabbed a carton of eggs and a pack of bacon. “And after the disappointment I’ve already been to them, I’m not looking for another reason for them to feel disappointed in me.”

  When Jesse didn’t reply, Dalton glanced over and found his friend watching him with a curious look on his face. He stopped what he was doing and said, “What?”

  “You’re a grown man, Dalton. You can’t live your life for other people. I mean, we can never please everyone. We’ve just got to do our best to make wise decisions, but we can’t constantly be trying to make everyone happy.”

  Dalton sighed. “We grew up in very different environments, Jess.” He turned his attention back to his breakfast preparations. Pulling out a large cookie sheet and tin foil, he said, “I was raised to be aware that certain things weren’t glorifying to God, and that we should make decisions with that in mind. Let’s just say that pretty much every decision I made, following the one I made to run away to Toronto, didn’t fall in line with that.”

  “You know, if you’d asked me about your background back before Angel passed away, I would have said you came from a bad home, or that you’d possibly been kicked out of your house. I never would have guessed you had a loving and supportive family you left behind. You never would talk to me about your family.”

  “I preferred not to think about them much, to be honest. I knew that my folks would have said no if I’d asked to go to Toronto to meet Bernie, and I knew why, but I went anyway.” Dalton opened the package of bacon and began to lay it out on the tinfoil on the cookie sheet. “When I told you I ran away, I was telling the truth. It was just the situation I was running from that I wasn’t upfront about.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jesse slide off the counter and swung around to watch as he went to the oven and turned it on.

  “I want to eat breakfast sooner rather than later,” he said with a grin.

  Dalton rolled his eyes at his friend before going back to the bacon. “If it takes too long, we can just have BLTs instead of bacon and eggs.”

  “I’m starving, dude.” Jesse returned to his spot on the counter. “Is this how you treat your guests?”

  “No, but then, you’re not a guest,” Dalton said as he washed his hands. “I mean, I never considered you a guest in my apartment in Toronto.”

  “True.”

  After he dried his hands, he moved to where his coffee machine sat. “Coffee?”

  “Don’t tell me that coming to Winnipeg has given you coffee-term memory loss.”

  “Coffee it is,” Dalton said as he pulled down two large mugs and went about filling them with coffee.

  He handed one to Jesse then took a sip of his own. “So anyway, we’re having dinner with my folks, my sister and JD, and Elliot.”

  “Who the…” Jesse cut himself off. “Who is Elliot?”

  “I see what you did there. Thank you.” Dalton took another sip. “Elliot is my… Oh, I have no idea his relation to me. His sister is married to my brother. He lives here in the building and has become a friend.”

  “Who else lives here?” Jesse asked as Dalton set his mug down and moved to put the baking pan into the oven and set the timer.

  “Marc, who isn’t related to anyone in the family, but he works for the family business. And Sierra lives across the hall. Her brother is married to my sister, and she’s also Danica’s best friend. They were living together before she and JD got married.”

  “Is she nice?” Jesse asked, which was kind of a strange question from him. It was rare he looked for nice as a quality in the women he hung around with.

  “Yeah, she is.” Dalton figured that downplaying the type of person Sierra was would only make Jesse suspicious, and he wasn’t ready to share what he was feeling for her with anyone just yet.

  “So why isn’t she coming to the dinner? Or Marc?”

  “Marc’s not coming because he doesn’t know who I am. I look different enough that he hasn’t put two and two together, but you would definitely be recognizable if he was even a passing fan of the band.”

  “So he works for the family business and lives in the family building but doesn’t know who you are?”

  “That’s one good thing about my family not approving of my career. They didn’t make a practice of telling many people about what I was up to.”

  “And why isn’t whats-her-name coming?”

  “Sierra,” Dalton supplied. “She’s not coming because she’s a nurse and is working the night shift. She said her shift starts at six pm.”

  “And the rest of your family isn’t invited?”

  As Dalton began to work on the eggs, he relayed the events of the past week. “So it’s best to just keep things small.”

  “What are we having for this dinner?” Jesse asked as he continued to drink his coffee. “Should we get it catered?”

  “I’ll have you know that I have really upped my cooking game. I have several options you can choose from.”

  As they discussed menu ideas, Dalton finished up the eggs while Jesse pulled the bacon from the oven when the timer went. It was close to ten by the time breakfast was finally ready. Jesse was at the table with the food while Dalton freshened their coffee when he heard the muffled thud of a door closing.

  Without thinking, Dalton found himself heading for his door.

  He jerked it open and went out on the landing in time to see Sierra disappear down the stairs. He leaned over the railing to peer down to the main floor.

  “Hey,” he called out.

  She came to a stop and looked up at him, her hair falling back from her face. “Hey.”

  “Are you headed to the hospital?”

  “Not yet. I have a couple of errands to run, and then I’m going to sleep for a few hours before heading up.” She looked tired, like she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before.

  “Is everything okay? How was your visit with Ethan yesterday?”

  Stepping back to lean against the front entrance, she said, “It was okay. He is doing better physically, so that’s good. Mentally, he’s still a bit confused about the accident and asks about it frequently. I know it’s wearing on Makayla.”

  Dalton felt movement at his side and looked over to see Jesse had joined him at the railing. With a sigh, he said, “By the way, this is Jesse. Jesse, this is Sierra. She was just telling me about her visit with her brother yesterday.”

  “Hey, Sierra. Nice to meet you.”

  “You too,” she said with a smile and a little wave.

  “Well, I won’t keep you from your errands,” Dalton said. “But I wanted to see how you were doing.”

  She transferred her smile to him. “I’ll talk to you later. Nice to meet you, Jesse.”

  The two of them stood at the railing as she walked toward the back door, disappearing from sight.

  “She looks like a cutie,” Jesse said once they heard the back door shut.

  “She’s not your type,” Dalton said over his shoulder as he headed back into the apartment.

  “I have a type?” Jesse asked.

  “Yeah, you do, and you know it, and you know she’s not it.”

  “Okay, fine. But she might be your type.”

  “I don’t have a type.”

  “True, which means she’s a possibility.”

  “Let’s eat,” Dalt
on said, not wanting to admit she was more than a possibility for him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Over breakfast, Dalton shared that he was trying to learn to drive which Jesse found endlessly hilarious. He’d learned as a teen since he’d been eager to claim that rite of passage and the independence that came with it, unlike Dalton who had relied on everyone else to chauffeur him around. Kind of like what he was doing now.

  Jesse laughed even harder when Dalton told him about the first—and last—lesson he’d had with Danica.

  “So what are you going to do now?”

  Dalton didn’t bother to mention that Sierra had been helping him out. Besides, in the past day or so, he’d made the decision to take lessons from a driving school since he didn’t want Sierra to feel pressured to help him. He really wanted to get his license, so that was the best solution he could come up with given the current situation.

  “I’m going to take lessons from some professional place. I just need to find one whose instructors won’t know who I am. I really don’t want to wake up one morning to see tabloid stories about me learning to drive.”

  “I guess this is where a management company would come in handy,” Jesse said as he pushed his empty plate away from him. “They could arrange lessons for you and make sure they were carried out without any chance of leaks.”

  “I need to take the time to figure out my next move with regards to representation.” Dalton picked up his mug and drained the last of his coffee. “I just don’t want to have to deal with it all, to be honest.”

  “I told you that my team is incredible, and they’d be willing to take you on.”

  Dalton knew he should jump at the opportunity, because if Jesse said they were good, then they were good. But when he still didn’t know what direction he was moving in, he wasn’t sure it was the right time to hire a new team.

  “That’s exactly when you should hire a team,” Jesse said when Dalton voiced that concern. “They can help you sort through your options.”

  “But what if I don’t want to go back into the music business? Then it seems a waste for me to have taken up their time.”